Sunday, February 21, 2010

Baldwin Project 2

My intent is to satisfy the requirements “Design and Fabricate a production-ready, DIY Kit that is based on the theme of creating a Social Space.” While all the conditions listed on the seminar site will be given equal footing, special consideration will be given to cost, and reflectiveness of user/audience/self.

The community this kit is intended for is people interested in visual entertainment as a social conversation. So the experience is on the nexus of both private and public use, which is to say that the internalized experience is private - but as a social conversation it becomes public, or semi private, between the people that share the experience.

I’m currently thinking about zoetrope constructions. Either as an camera obscura type addition to a mobile device, that projects a sequence of images playing on the device (see page 2) -- or as a traditional stand alone put-together project (see page 3).

After considering the two constructions mentioned, I researched and found:

http://www.instructables.com/id/Make-an-iPod-Video-Projector/

Using this project as a point of departure I hope to create an efficient costing device that will project from a mobile device. The kit should be made from a sturdy cardboard and I would consider bellows, or something similar, to create a focusing apparatus.

A couple of strategies I’m thinking of in regards to “not just passively transform the space in which it is implemented... but serve as a genuine attempt to create a sense of new or transformed social space” is:

For the first strategy, users would be given access to a still or stock footage which they could use as a backdrop for their own content. When multiple users project their new creation the multiple backgrounds would gain strength and new interesting combinations of story and entertainment would be created.

For the second strategy, users wishing to make public statements of defiance could do so without damaging property. A theatrical non-marking graffiti. In the comfort of a studio video footage could be shot of the graffiti, and then projected onto sites where the message is relevant.

For the third strategy, users could project paintings, photos, videos, etc onto spaces they may not normally have access to, like an MCA or Art Institute.